A Deck of Fools
by EvanescentBlue
Summary: AU-ish, Gen, fem!Kaito: Childhood friends have a tendency to drive you nuts, especially if you're Hakuba Saguru and said friend is an arguably certifiable phantom thief. But with a serial killer on the loose in Osaka, magicians disappearing in Tokyo, increased sightings of black-wearing criminals, and Kudo Shinichi apparently wanted for murder, he isn't about to complain.


_Author's Note: The title refers to the Fool Arcana, by the way._

_This fic is the result of me thinking about Detective Conan and Magic Kaito, or more specifically the childhood friends aspect of them. Kaito and Aoko, Shinichi and Ran, Heiji and Kazuha...really, the only teens who didn't get a childhood friend would be Hakuba, Akako, Sonoko, and I guess Sera. So, I decided to do an AU in which Hakuba has a female childhood friend who doubles as his rival and maybe-love interest. But who? Akako would be the obvious choice, but I can't really imagine Hakuba and Akako together very well. I don't enjoy writing fics with a completely original OC as the main character, either. But eventually, I realized - why not make this more of an AU and make fem!Kaito Hakuba's childhood friend/rival/potential love interest? Hey, at least it'll be interesting, right?_

_Don't worry, almost everyone will all appear in this fic one way or another. And to clear up a bit of confusion - Kid will be referred to as male while Kaiyo will be referred to as female, to distinguish between when she's in costume and when she's not._

_Disclaimer: I do not own Detective Conan or Magic Kaito._

* * *

Nakamori Ginzo walked briskly down the corridor, quadruple-checking the placement and faces of his men. His men were no rookies; they stood stiffly at attention, giving him polite nods even as they eyed him suspiciously. Even the head of the Task Force wasn't free from suspicion when it came to Kid. It wouldn't be the first time the damned thief had disguised as him and Ginzo was in a way proud of his men for being so rightly paranoid.

He turned the corner and entered the room where the target of tonight's heist was located. The Gryphon's Heart was a ruby roughly the size of a man's palm, plainly cut and, although highly expensive, rather bland and unremarkable compared with some of the other gems on display in this particular exhibition. Still, it was without a doubt Kid's target and for that reason this unremarkable gem had been moved into a room of its own and stuck inside a display case of tempered glass. The cushion it lay on was highly sensitive to weight; the loss of the gem would trigger the release of a powerful sleeping gas. In addition, anyone setting foot in the area around the display case within a three foot radius would be trapped in a steel cage. Even if the thief managed to get past all those, there was still the museum's own state of the art security system which had been upgraded specially for this heist, not to mention the Task Force itself.

Ginzo smiled. This was the night; he just knew it.

Standing unobtrusively off to the side were two teenagers - a blonde-haired detective and a girl with messy brown hair cut in a boyish style. Hakuba Saguru had mentioned that his best friend was a skilled magician so Ginzo had told him to bring her to the heist so they could get a magician's opinion on the security. Kuroba Kaiyo had been very helpful with her suggestions, although for some reason Hakuba had had a sour expression on his face the entire time and occasionally jumped into the conversation much more forcefully than usual. Right now the teen detective had that same expression as he listened to whatever Kuroba was saying; Kuroba either ignored or didn't notice it and was grinning from ear to ear.

Ginzo chalked it up to teenagers being teenagers and left it at that.

* * *

"Is there something on my face, Saguru? Is that why you're staring?" Kaiyo made a show of patting her cheeks anxiously. "That's not good...I want to be perfect for when Kid comes!"

Saguru raised a disbelieving eyebrow and pointedly didn't say anything. Kaiyo disguised her snickers as a fit of nervous giggles; the detective was obviously bursting to say something, but couldn't do so without alerting the Task Force that he highly suspected his childhood friend was Kaitou Kid. Never mind that his suspicions were completely wrong and that she had solid alibis for several heists, but Saguru had never been a fan of chaos and that was exactly what would happen if the police found a suspect for Kaitou Kid, false or no. Also, he was just too much of a gentleman to break the rules of their game like that.

"Aww~, why're you being so mean, Sagu-chan?" She pouted, thoroughly enjoying the wince and glare she got in return.

"Don't call me that!" Saguru grumbled for the twenty-sixth time that day. "Shouldn't you be paying attention, Kaiyo? It will be eight thirty in one minute and forty six seconds." _Whatever it is you're trying to do here, it's not going to work._

"What, don't you enjoy my conversation?" Kaiyo clutched her hands to her chest and adopted an utterly heartbroken expression. "Are you trying to shut me up? I thought we were friends!" _Getting nervous, are we? Don't worry, I've got everything under control~!_

"I highly doubt that's possible," Saguru said dryly, "but since you wanted to see Kid so badly it's in your best interest to do so. 'He' should be making his entrance soon." _In your dreams. I've got my eye on you._

"Hmm...when you put it that way..." Kaiyo turned back to the display case and tilted her head from side to side, looking at it from one angle and then another. "Yeah, I guess I should." She gave Saguru a long, sideways glance and allowed her lips to curl into a small but unmistakable grin. _Too late, it's s__howtime!_

Bright pink gas engulfed the room and the officers and Saguru scrambled for their gas masks, the detective throwing her a dirty look as he did so. Kaiyo took the opportunity to inflate the highly realistic dummy in her pocket, drop it unceremoniously onto the floor, and somersault onto the display case, swapping her clothes in mid-jump. When the smoke cleared roughly half of the Task Force was fast asleep; the other half and Saguru quickly surrounded the metal cage in the center of the room, where the Kaitou Kid was perched on the display case like an overgrown, manically grinning cat.

"Give it up Kid, you've got no way out!" Nakamori-keibu roared, grinning so widely he almost gave Kid a run for his money.

Kid reached up and tugged at the brim of his hat, still grinning like the Cheshire Cat. "Give it up?" he said innocently. "Whatever do you mean, keibu?" He stuck his hand into his pocket, then paused and made an expression of exaggerated surprise. "Why, what do we have here...?" he murmured. "Perhaps...this is what you were referring to?" he took out his hand and held up the Gryphon's Heart, turning it this way and that so that it caught the light on all sides.

Instinctively several pairs of eyes jumped to the display case, which was quite empty, ruby and cushion and all. As a result they missed the widening of Kid's grin; what they didn't miss, however, was the sudden puff of smoke and the Kid's delighted laugh as the smoke faded to reveal no thief in sight.

"What a lovely gift you've prepared for me tonight," Kid sang, his voice echoing from everywhere and nowhere all at once. "Please, allow me to give you one of my own as a token of my appreciation!" A gilded white cushion with Kid's signature caricature on both sides soared through the air and smacked into Nakamori-keibu's face.

There was a moment of silence. All eyes swiveled to the Inspector, whose face was completely obscured by the cushion that seemed to be temporarily stuck on it. Kid's caricature grinned at them proudly and shot them a peace sign. The people closest to him began to edge away slowly.

Saguru facepalmed.

The cushion dropped away.

" ^!&*!( ^ %!^ *&^ ^#&$%^&#$%*^&&*($&#&^$%^*%!"

And with those traditional, time-honored words the chase began.

* * *

Saguru slipped away from the post-heist chaos and headed for the subway station. Halfway there Kaiyo slipped out of an alleyway and joined him with a bounce in her step and a smile on her face that widened when she saw him. They walked in silence; it wasn't until they stepped onto the train that Kaiyo spoke up.

"Nice hair."

"Thanks."

Saguru pointedly ignored the stares he was getting from the other people on the train and stared straight ahead for the entire ride, wondering how he was going to get that neon green dye off (he was almost certain it was a new recipe). Kaiyo's stop arrived first; this time Saguru was the one who broke the silence.

"Kaiyo, at least try to be on time tomorrow." _I'll get you back for this Kid, just wait._

Kaiyo smiled. "Yeah, I will. See you!" _I look forward to it, Tantei-san~!_


End file.
